[Below are excerpts from several articles about the historic upsurge this spring by predominantly Latino immigrants in defense of their rights.]

Immigrant Dreams Are Purely American

By Phil Tajitsu Nash

For centuries, debates about the so-called 'immigration issue' have been substitutes for broader policy discussions about the kind of nation we are or should become. Of course, the entire discussion about 'immigration' is tainted from the start by a failure to recognize that the first group of European-speaking immigrants were even immigrants at all. We exclude them from the immigration debate by calling them 'pilgrims,' and cloak their occasional atrocities with a label that implies that the Almighty endorsed their cause.

Native Americans in Virginia and Massachusetts in the 1600s did not erect walls and barbed wire fences to keep our new arrivals, even though they did not speak the language, know how to survive or fit in with local customs. Ironically, many Latinos have Native American ancestry mixed with European, African or Asian ancestry. Just listen to the Aymaran, Quechuan or Mayan words that slip into the Spanish you hear at a workplace, depending on the nation or origin of the workers. . .

excerpted from article in April 28, 2006 Asian Week National

Immigrants: Their Fight is Our Fight

By Dave Ransom

Stand in a crowd of Mexican immigrants at one of the big rallies and ask them why they made the dangerous trip north to a country where they didn't even speak the language, and the answer is likely to boil down to NAFTA.

Of course, that might also be the answer you get from native-born Americans standing in an unemployment line in Detroit, Chicago, or Cleveland-which tells you something about the state of the world. Or at least the state of the Americas. . .

With the dropping of tariff barriers once NAFTA was signed, companies like ADM flooded the Mexican market with cheap corn, and these millions of Mexican farmers and their families were out of work. Unable to put bread on the table, they've gone looking for work where they could find it. . .

And there's more to come. After NAFTA, the same corporate interests who use our country as their military and political launching pad twisted arms in Central America and passed CAFTA. Central American corn farmers know they are next to get hit. . .

All that puts a different take on the folks holding up the signs that say, "We Are All American." The Americas extend from Alaska to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. Maybe it's time for those of us in the United States to realize that being "American" has become a lot bigger than just being a citizen of the U.S.A.

excerpted from May 2006 People's Tribune

From the "International Declaration of the Undocumented"

It is a worldwide system based on the unlimited search for profit and on the savage exploitation of the earth and its people that has led to the displacement of millions of workers from the poorest to the richest countries searching for work and a way to sustain their families.

As an instrument to control migration, the receptor countries pass cruel laws that criminalize and control immigrants. Different 'regularization' or 'adjustment' laws for immigrants all over the world also regulate the working conditions and the quality of life and residency of the immigrants submitting them to a double standard, creating a second class of workers, and developing situations of new slavery. The same way that Europe wants to 'export' its borders South, to Libya, Morocco, etc., the United States wants to export its border to the South of Mexico to stop the flow of immigrants even before they reach the US border. The situation is similar as the struggle expands through all the rich countries: France, the United States, Belgium, England, Switzerland ...that's why the struggle of immigrants in one country reflect on the rest and call for coordination.

All immigrant workers have the right to legal documentation that would allow them to work with dignity, and to fully enjoy their rights and human dignity. The abuse of the 'immigrant status' allows governments to keep a massive class of workers that cannot ask for just working conditions, which in turn lowers the working conditions and salaries of all the workers.

From "Getting No Bill At All is Better Than Senate Bill," by David Bacon

When the U.S. Senate passed its version of "comprehensive immigration reform" on Thursday, senators from both sides of the aisle claimed that despite the enormous controversy the bill has generated, passing a bill with flaws was better than passing no bill at all. Outside of the beltway and its coterie of lobbyists, however, a groundswell of community groups now argue that Congress would do better to pass no bill than to enact a bill which reconciles the proposal just passed by the Senate, and that passed last December in the House of Representatives.

In a statement condemning the latest Hagel-Martinez compromise, S 2611, the proposal that just passed on Thursday, immigrant rights advocates convened by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights argued Wednesday that "the rush to reach a bipartisan accord on immigration legislation has led to a compromise that would create deep divisions within the immigrant community and leave millions of undocumented immigrants in the shadows."

The United States is currently home to over 12 million people without immigration documents, which makes them and their families subject to deportation and vulnerable to exploitation at work. Nevertheless, the groups point to the following provisions of the Senate bill, which will make immigrants much worse off than they are even at present:

--Under the Senate's legalization plan, those with less than two years in the United States (about a million people) would be immediately subject to deportation. Those with two to five years must leave the country, and may apply to re-enter through some currently unknown process. The ability of border stations to handle the applications of the 3 to 4 million people involved is doubtful, given the current years-long backlog in normal visa applications.

--Like HR 4437 passed by the House in December, the Senate bill would ramp up the enforcement of current employer sanctions to make it a crime for undocumented people to hold a job. Employers often use this law to retaliate against workers who try to enforce labor standards or join unions. The Social Security Administration would become immigration police, forcing all workers to carry a new national ID card, and would require employers to fire anyone who's documents they question. The current Basic Pilot program, which moves in this direction, has shown the SSA database to be rife with errors.

--The Senate bill establishes and expands guest worker programs, allowing employers to recruit workers outside the country on temporary visas. These new contract workers would be vulnerable to employer pressure, since their visa status would be dependant on their employment. Further, as the AFL-CIO's Ana Avenda points out, "this turns jobs that are now held by permanent employees with rights and benefits into jobs filled by temporary, contract employees. It basically takes the jobs of millions of people out of the protections of the New Deal won by workers decades ago." The labor federation points out that if currently undocumented workers and new immigrants were given permanent residence status instead of temporary visas, they would be able to exercise their rights as workers and community residents.

--The Senate bill "vastly increases detention and deportation practices and further militarizes the border," according to the New York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. The Halliburton Corporation has already been given a U.S. contract for construction of immigrant detention facilities near the border with Mexico, and proposals have been made for reopening closed military bases to house deportees and detainees. The bill makes document fraud an aggravated felony and grounds for deportation, resulting in the criminalization of the millions of immigrants who have had to provide false Social Security cards to employers in order to get hired.

From "Latinos Create a New Political Climate," by Elizabeth Martinez

The first step is seeing that the key issue is the exploitation of workers and that it is racist. The recent, massive mobilizations are in essence a defensive reaction to proposed legislation, and have not yet developed an agenda of more pro-active demands. But it is hard to imagine that everyone will quiet down and go home soon for lack of a strategy for the future. One possibility is that no new legislation will pass before the November elections. That might be just as well, allowing more time to organize, strategize, and register new Latino voters. Those new voters, especially from among the energetic and militant youth (all high schools in Oakland, for example, were almost totally emptied on May 1) are a major goal of many forces.

The Republicans are very divided on the immigration issue, with Bush unable to count on support or even to be sure of what he wants that might pass. The Christian Right, a Republican bulwark, is also divided between a commitment to Christian compassion for the weak and seeing immigrants as a burden and a threat to "American culture" (according to two-thirds of white evangelicals). It is possible to imagine a new political landscape initiated by the immigrant rights movement.

We should also keep special eyes on Latin America, where more and more left-leaning forces have come into state power. The possibility of their programs helping to inspire a new vision and strategy for pro-immigrant forces in the U.S. can be imagined. For those who doubt this bold notion, we can only say: who could have imagined what Latinos have done in the last three months? SI SE PUEDE!

What Do Immigrant Rights Advocates Want?

A statement by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights based in Oakland spelled out key needs:

genuine legalization and opportunities to adjust status for all undocumented immigrants
preservation of due process, including restoration of access to the courts and meaningful judicial review no expansion of guest worker programs
no more wasted resources to further militarize our borders and contribute to the crisis of human rights and lives in the border region the strengthening and enforcement of labor law protections for all workers, native and foreign-born an end to employer sanctions
no use of city, state or other government agencies in the enforcement of immigration law [this referred particularly to the use of local police]
expansion of legal immigration opportunities, support for family reunification and immediate processing of pending visa applications